What Family Is For
by IfLooksCouldCure
Summary: AU. OOC. What if John never went missing and Dean never asked Sam to go hunting again? When Sam comes home from a Law School interview to find his girlfriend burning on the bedroom ceiling, he knows it's time to contact his family again. Will Sam and John get along now that they have a common goal in mind, and how long can Dean sit back and watch his brother self destruct?


The interview had gone brilliantly; Sam felt confident that this would be the law school he would study at until he got his degree. Finally everything was coming together, he had a career, a beautiful girlfriend and a modest – yet stunning – engagement ring in his left pocket. Jess had no idea he was planning to propose, they had discussed the idea of their future together and Jess was eager to have the old fashioned white-picket fence, home cooked meals, children running in the garden… basically, everything that Sam had wanted when he left hunting behind.

"Jess?" He called quietly, as he unlocked the front door to their apartment. The apartment was dark, a soft orange glow from the streetlights outside allowed him to find the kitchen light switch. A plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies lay on the counter, a piece of A4 paper was folded over them with a note saying –

_Missed You!_

_Love You!_

He smiled and picked up one of the cookies, they looked perfect on the top but Sam knew Jess better than that, turning the cookie upside down he saw the streaks of black where she had tried to scrape off the burnt bits. He stuffed it in his mouth anyways as he wandered through to their bedroom, the bed was still made. He paused briefly, _where was she? _A brief moment of panic struck him before he relaxed, she was probably staying with Joanna or Terri; she hated staying home alone and always bunked with a friend whenever he was out of town – which was not that often.

He flopped back on the bed, his eyes closing before he could even pull his jeans off. He was just so tired. Something wet dropped on his face, he flinched before he felt another drop, _what was that? Did Mrs Rogers leave her bath running again? _He opened his eyes in irritation.

Everything paused, he breathed in deeply as he took in the sight before him, automatically rising so that he was half-sitting, supported by his elbows.

_Jess Oh God, not her. Not her._

She was on the ceiling, hair fanned out around her face, She would have been perfectly normal if not for the fact that she had black eyes and blood was spreading from what looked to be a long horizontal gash along her abdomen. Also, she was on the _ceiling. _

"No." He mumbled, in too much shock to say much else. "NO!" Flame appeared from the ceiling beneath he back, wrapping around her body like a caress. "Jess!"

He didn't know what to do, this wasn't normal; he had heard his father mention how their mother died, even if it was a very vague story, and linked it to this. On the ceiling; bloody stomach; fire. Jess was suffering the same fate as his mother had. How long had he lay there? The shock wore off and he leapt to his feet on top on the bed, his fingers wrapped her arms as he tried to pull her from the ceiling, it was no use but he didn't give up, not even when the flames had spread to the bed and were licking at his skin. "Jess, no please, Jess."

The ceiling creaked ominously and Sam managed to dive out of the way as it gave. Part of him knew that if the ceiling had collapsed, there would be almost no chance of him rescuing Jess alive, the smoke was getting to him and he was in agony from the heat of the flames but that didn't stop him from diving towards the burning remains of the ceiling and trying to dig through it for Jess.

Before he could reach it, a pair of strong arms wrapped themselves around his waist and chest and he found himself being dragged backwards away from the flames, and away from his girlfriend. "No, stop, I can still save her." Sam pleaded.

"Come on, Son. There's nothing you can do for her now." The fireman said, at those words Sam went limp.

He felt himself be dragged out of their home and over to an ambulance. He could see the flames spreading up and down the building, whatever it was that had killed Jess had also killed a great deal more because of the fire.

"Sir, my name is Andrea; I'm a paramedic, do you know what happened?" A brunette asked as she shone a light in his eyes.

"She's dead." Sam said, the pain made his voice crack.

"Definitely in shock," Andrea muttered to her partner. "First degree burns on torso, arms, legs and back. Second degree burns on hands…" Sam didn't hear anything more, as the pain became too great and he blacked out.

When he finally came around again, Sam found himself in a clinical environment – _hospital _– his mind supplied. The smell of disinfectant invaded his nostrils every single time he inhaled. He glanced around, his room was empty and apparently nobody had noticed that he was awake yet, that was good; it allowed him a chance to get his thoughts together, everything had happened so quickly. He suddenly felt like a child, he had never been so alone in his life, he wanted Jess and Dean, hell at that moment in time he would have welcomed his father with open arms. He seized the opportunity he was granted with and spotting a plastic ziplock bag of all the possessions on his person during admission, he reached out – painfully – and managed to snag it off the bedside table. Every movement hurt.

There wasn't much in the bag, it seemed that all his clothes were too far gone to be salvageable. In the bag was his phone; dented and cracked but still somehow working, and the ring that he had planned to give to Jess. He paused fumbling with the box clumsily – his hands were heavily bandaged, to stare at the perfect, unaffected piece of jewellery inside; something so simple that would have changed his life immensely. He set it to the side, still open, as he picked up his battered phone. He scrolled to the second entry in the contacts: **DEAN. **It took a great deal of skill to operate the phone without the full use of his hands, in fact he had almost called the wrong person twelve times before he managed to get Dean's number up.

He knew the number off by heart, he technically didn't need to add him to contacts but Sam wanted normalcy, and what was more normal than adding family to his contacts? He pressed the call button, briefly wondering whether Dean would even _want _to speak to him and balanced the phone between his bandaged hand and his ear.

"Dean Winchester." The voice was so familiar that Sam paused, he could feel the emotion building up; all he wanted to do was cry to his brother and tell him everything. "Hello?"

"Dean." Sam said quietly.

"Sam?" Dean's shocked tone caused Sam to wince slightly, had he really neglected his family that badly? "Are you alright?"

"No, I'm not ok, Dean, I-" His voice cracked and he swallowed to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill over.

"Sammy, where are you?" Dean's voice had changed dramatically, taking on a worried tone. Sam could hear his father in the backround: _"Is that Sam? Why's he calling? Has something happened?"_

"Palo Alto." Sam said. "I'm in the hospital, I…Just please come, Dean."

* * *

**AN: I do not own Supernatural, as much as I wish I did!**

**I decided to write that after that jawdropping season 9 finale, lets have a flashback to the beginning with an AU ;) did you like it? **


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